Railways - France: Books - History and Rolling Stock

Les 100 trains qui ont changé la France

On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the SNCF, this book tells the story of the impact the train, the embodiment of progress and modernity, has had on the territory by irrigating France, crossing borders, and supplanting the automobile, whether for leisure or business trips.

In our country, the railway has, since its beginnings, conveyed a plethora of emotions and populated the collective imagination. The trains of yesteryear were baptized with evocative names: Mistral, Capitole, Train Bleu, Flèche d'Or, Bugatti, Orient-Express, Oiseau bleu, Etoile du Nord. Others, with amusing nicknames such as Souris grises, Lézard vert, Mille-pattes, Bleu d'Auvergne, Picasso, Divine or even Tire-bouchon.

The most recent ones - RER, TGV, Eurostar, Thalys, Francilien, Régiolis, Coradia Liner, Lunéa, VAL - also have the power to transport and move us. This book, aimed at train enthusiasts and novices, tells the story of 100 trains from yesterday and today in short texts and images. These trains that have changed France...

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Le chemin de fer des années 20 et 30 - avec les plus belles photos de La Vie du Rail

In the "Images de trains" collection, this is volume II, "Le chemin de fer des années 20 et 30" with the most beautiful photos of La Vie du Rail.
The interwar period through high-quality photographs and a valuable testimony on machines and men. An opportunity to discover Fenino, Floquet, Fohano, Hermann, Vilain or Henry, these true pioneers of railway photography.

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Un siècle de cartes postales ferroviaires

The railway postcard is now one hundred years old. Appearing in the early years of the 20th century, many series were published by Fernand Fleury and the Neurdin brothers (ND photo), Parisian photographers, printers and publishers. Then new publishers arrived, Gillet, Danel, etc., and thanks to them, over the years, the equipment put into service by the French railway companies was revealed to the general public.

Fortunately for us, admirers of old locomotives and others nostalgic for "steam", cartophiles, or more precisely, rail enthusiasts, passionate about beautiful mechanics, architecture (stations) and builders (bridges, viaducts, tunnels), work tirelessly to collect and preserve these magnificent iconographic collections.
So, who better than Evelyne and Jean-Pierre Rigouard, authors of more than twenty works devoted to the French railway, could draw up this fascinating and unpublished picture of more than a hundred years of photographs on the rail? All aboard and have a good trip!

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Le chemin de fer en France, de la vapeur à l'électricité

NEW

In 1900, the first "electric" locomotive capturing current on a 3rd electric rail on the ground entered Orsay station, in the 7th arrondissement of Paris.
This conclusive experiment saw the gradual extension of the 3rd rail on the suburban networks of the Western and Paris-Orléans companies. From 1919, the Midi company, encouraged by the State, explored this innovative technique but opted for an overhead "catenary" distributing 1500 V direct current.

Electrifications, disrupted by the war, were almost stopped by the new SNCF. This work traces all the major stages of this change which revolutionized the technical operation of the railway, putting an end to the era of powerful steam locomotives, dear to the engineer Chapelon, but dependent on coal and water intakes.

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Les trains de voyageurs - en rames tractées 1938-1972

Enthusiasts will be delighted to find in this book little-known, unique and highly diverse visuals of these passenger trains that ran along the SNCF lines from the old companies.
Passengers and employees will be honored since they bring an irreplaceable and deeply human force to these shots. Lesser-known aspects such as the liveries of the cars and vans or the major overhauls of a car in the workshop will also be mentioned here!

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Un Anglais sur les rails de France : Vacances d'un photographe de 1962 à 1967

This book offers to see three journeys on the rails of France in 1962, 1966 and 1967 made by a famous English photographer in love with steam locomotives, Hugh Ballantyne.
The photos published here are therefore unknown and the places visited appear to us from new angles, with perfect framing. The majority of the images are in color: an additional asset for those looking for details on locomotives.

Didier Leroy and Gérard Chambard have selected the most significant views, from the collection made available by Toni Ballantyne, the photographer's wife, who accompanied her husband to almost fifty countries around the world where he immortalized steam traction for 63 years.

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Les métiers du rail

Whether they are responsible for selling or checking tickets, maintaining carriages, wagons or locomotives, laying and maintaining tracks, ensuring the proper functioning of signalling, forming, driving or switching passenger or freight trains... railway workers provide, 365 days a year, a fabulous team effort allowing trains to run in complete safety.

Thus constituting a unique corporation in the world of transport, the SNCF (and the seven public or private networks that preceded it until 1937) employed up to 500,000 "railway agents" divided into 45 professional sectors, exercising a multitude of well-known... or lesser-known professions!

Some were born with the railway, others disappeared at the same time as the steam locomotive, many were invented to promote the development of traffic or meet customer expectations.
For others, finally, the content of the job adapted during the electrification of the network, the mechanization of track maintenance or the development of light signaling.

This book, richly illustrated with 300 documents, photos and period postcards, reveals all its facets through portraits and anecdotes...
Signal boxes, train driving and circulation, track maintenance; organization of stations, training sites, workshops or locomotive depots; "key" professions, professional practices and work tools... nothing will hold any secrets for you!

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La Cité du Train - Musée du Patrimoine SNCF

Before 1857, the six major French networks were formed: North, East, Paris - Orléans, Paris - Lyon-Mediterranean, South and West. After the implementation of the Freycinet plan, launched in 1879, France at the beginning of the 20th century had one of the densest railway networks in Europe. All French railways were nationalized on January 1, 1938 and grouped into a Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer français, SNCF.

The latter, which had an obligation to provide a public service, had to make a considerable effort in the aftermath of the Liberation, when 80% of the traction power, 80% of the passenger cars, and 64% of the freight cars were destroyed or damaged as a result of the hostilities.
The major achievements of the last fifty years are: the electrification of the network, the substitution of diesel locomotives for steam traction on other lines, the commissioning of increasingly fast locomotives, the opening of the commercial service of turbotrains, and of course the TGV.

This book on the railway museum "La Cité du Train" in Mulhouse will be very useful for understanding the equipment. Bringing together their history in a single volume, looking for the origins, the past, scrutinizing the developments, developing interests, meeting the needs of society, meeting the adventures of the men who made the history of our railway, offering readers both a cultural tool and an attractive work that can be read and consulted easily: these are the key ideas that presided over the creation of La Cité du Train, the SNCF heritage book.

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